After more than a dozen years off the air (and one very weird movie) the X-files is back for a six episode arc.
This is very exciting for us X-Philes.
Back in the old days, when I was first obsessed with the show, I would never write my opinion of an episode until I’d watched it at least three times. Back in the old days, I had a VCR and taped each ep specifically for this purpose. Now, I don’t record shows or watch them on demand. I prefer to buy the good ones on DVD and binge watch without the distraction of ads and credits. Immersion television is both more enjoyable and more efficient than commercial TV.
But I couldn’t let this milestone pass without comment.
Just like with Star Wars the Force Awakens, I avoided all trailers and commentary. I didn’t want to waste time and energy wondering, I just wanted to get on with my life until I could know whether the new iteration worked or not.
Of course, unlike either Star Trek or Star Wars, The X-Files is being brought to us by the very same people who did the original. Whether this is a good thing or not remains to be seen.
So far, so good!
Several things struck me right away, the first being a memory of David Duchovny giving an interview over 20 years ago where he mused upon how funny it would be to see Mulder still running after aliens when he was in his fifties and now h-Files ere we were, watching that very thing.
Initial impressions; Mulder is crazy and Scully is merely nuts.
In the second movie, which was eight years ago, our two favorite agents were out of the bureau, underground and living together. Whether they were married or not was a topic of disagreement, not that it matters. Scully was working as a doctor at a Catholic hospital and Mulder was a hermit, working on his obsessions from the comfort of their cozy little farmhouse in nowhere Virginia.
Cut to today, where Scully is still doctoring up a storm at the darkest little private hospital in the developed world, having somewhere in the intervening years, had enough of Mulder and his weird-assery, kicked him to the curb and abandoned him and the spooky little farm house.
As usual, all the really interesting stuff happened between the episodes and we viewers are left to make up whatever scenario we’d like to cover the ground.
The X-Files may not have invented fan fiction but it practically made FF necessary.
Seriously, though; has anyone ever seen any sort of a medical or health care facility that was as dark as the tomb Scully and her cohorts are apparently attaching fake ears to the heads of goofy looking little kids? After Josie was born, she spent three days in NICU and they didn’t have a bed for me in the maternity ward so they shuttled me off to an abandoned part of the hospital (yes, it was scary as hell, thank you for asking) but even so, it was far more brightly lit and cheerful than the operating room at Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital. Perhaps Our Lady is Sorrowful because she can’t afford light bulbs.
This is exactly the sort of nonsense we love the X-Files for. Everyone hates the hospital; it should look the part.
The conversation between our heroes when they first meet is fraught with meaning. On the surface, it sounds like two dear old friends, happy to have a chance to work together again after many years of just not having the time…we’ve all been there, right? But for those of us who saw the second movie, that conversation had sharp edges of recrimination beneath layers of sadness and regret.
As for the question of whether or not Fox Mulder ever became Mr. Dr. Dana Scully, his use of the phrase ‘for better or for worse’ suggests that they did indeed, tie the knot. The conversation gives the impression that it was Scully’s idea to untie it, for which Mulder can’t really blame her but can’t really forgive her, either.
It’s a Shippers treasure trove.
A word here, a look there…watching the X-Files is all about searching for truth hidden beneath, behind and around everything in sight…it seems that Mulder fell into the funk that awaits all men obsessed with work when they’re forced into early retirement. The only thing more difficult than living with manic Mulder would be trying to live with depressed Mulder. After who knows how long, even St. Scully couldn’t do it anymore.
SO…they’re reunited in a case involving possible alien abduction, child harvesting, embryo implantation, genetic manipulation and mutation, reverse engineered technology…all the good stuff!
Then there’s a conspiracy guru who runs his own TV network who offers to let Mulder in on all the juicy secrets.
Mulder is contemptuous of the Glenn Beck wannabe but within minutes allows the man’s arguments to not merely undermine but utterly destroy everything Mulder ever claimed to believe. He tries to be all cool about, saying he didn’t believe, believe; he just wanted to believe.
Yeah, that’s the kind of dedication you want in a disciple.
It takes Mulder about ten minutes to declare that everything he’s ever believed in was wrong and now it’s time to dedicate his entire existence to believing in a brand new government conspiracy! His old Absolute Belief that the government was covering up proof of the existence of aliens and participating in a conspiracy to sell out the human race has been replaced by a New Absolute Belief that entire federal agencies had been created for the express and sole purpose of pranking one Fox Mulder.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many times he’d pulled that shit on Scully before she finally packed her bags and moved into St. Creepy Ass Hospital.
To avoid looking like a narcissistic, arrogant ass (too late), Mulder throws in the possibility that the feds are attempting to create a new race of mutant humans. He knows this will rope Scully in; she’s always been a total sucker for the baby angle. Especially since losing two (count ‘em) two kids of her own.
I was very glad that the missing William was a topic of conversation. His birth and subsequent adoption was the single biggest thing that happened to M&S and I want his existence to be important to this six episode arc. In fact, exploring what happened to the son Scully gave up fifteen years ago seems to me to be the single best reason for bringing the show back at all. William’s life is a fascinating field for conjecture.
That and monsters, of course.
I was delighted to see Skinner again. He looks fit and ready for anything. Back in the day, he was sort of like a father figure to the young Agent Mulder. For years, his character straddled the fence between Mulder’s insane ideas (which usually proved true) and the establishment. He finally went all in and in the series finale should have had to go underground with our spooky duo. When the second movie rolled around, there he was, still in a position of authority in the Bureau, so we were just left to assume that he got away with helping the fugitives escape. All things considered, I thought Mulder was extremely ungrateful in his attitude towards his once and future boss. Also, Skinner actually looks younger than Mulder now. Crazy tends to age a person.
The story of the first two episodes revolve around a very pretty young Russian girl who claims to have been abducted several times, impregnated and the babies harvested repeatedly.
Mulder believes her without reservation while Scully is skeptical.
Who would have guessed?
The plot thickens tremendously when Scully drops by the cozy little farmhouse she and Mulder used to share and discovers that Mail Order Bride has apparently moved in. Dr. Scully knows exactly where to put the bullets to cause the most amount of damage but since she can’t decide whether it’s Mulder or the white Russian she wants to shoot, she satisfies herself with flouncing off in a jealous huff instead.
Either way, it’s clear as anything ever is on this show that she’s still head over heels in love with Ol’ Spooky and is NOT enchanted with the idea of a younger model abductee moving in.
Nothing of the sort is going on between Mulder and the poor little immigrant girl but that’s never stopped Scully from throwing a hissy fit before.
I was not happy to see the CSM but only because the last time we saw him, a cruise missile was flying up his nose. I know you can’t kill the Devil but come on.
If you can’t kill him, why give him burn scars and a tracheotomy?
Of course, we were warned nearly two decades ago that no one dies forever on the X-Files. Maybe Krycek will be back! Heck, a bullet between the eyes is nothing compared to a cruise missile in the sinus!
I can’t wait to find out.